Congressional intelligence committee members are going to find out today how the Justice Department has rationalized the killing of Americans by drone strike without due process. The Obama administration has authorized the release of a classified report that goes into detail about how DoJ arrived at their controversial conclusions on not only drone strikes, but rendition and certain "enhanced interrogation techniques."

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a committee member who had pressed the administration to provide the opinion, left open the possibility he might still try to block Brennan's nomination. He said turning over the opinion was a good first step.

"I'm committed to making sure that we get all the facts," Wyden said on NBC's "Today" show. "Early this morning, I'm going to be going in to read the opinion. We'll go from there."

Wyden said "there are still substantial questions" about how the administration justifies and plans drone strikes. "The Founding Fathers thought the president should have significant power in the national security arena. But there have to be checks and balances," Wyden said. "You can't just skirt those checks and balances if you think it's inconvenient."

An unclassified memo leaked this week says it is legal for the government to kill U.S. citizens abroad if it believes they are senior al-Qaida leaders continually engaged in operations aimed at killing Americans, even if there is no evidence of a specific imminent attack.

That unclassified memo is based on classified advice from the Office of Legal Counsel that is being made available to the intelligence committees' members, the official said. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the decision and requested anonymity.

You wouldn't hesitate to kill a fellow American if you were facing him on a battlefield.

* The Killing of Confederate Soldiers during the Civil War. Were they considered American Citizens then, or fighters from another country?

* There were a few instances in World War II where German American citizens, fighting for the Nazis were killed by American troops. Nobody was concerned then about whether the enemy’s constitutional rights had been respected.

Its a very difficult problem. If an American citizen goes abroad and gives aid, comfort and advice to an enemy who is trying to kill US soldiers or citizens, is that person a legitimate target? Better ask John Kerry, Bill Ayers, and Jane Fonda. Why only drones, why not CIA assassins?

There were a few instances in World War II where German American citizens, fighting for the Nazis were killed by American troops. Nobody was concerned then about whether the enemys constitutional rights had been respected.

Nobody was checking passports either. In combat/warfare all enemies on the field are fair game because of imminent danger and self defense.

What is the issue being discussed is kill lists targeting US citizens -joy stick killings in non combat areas where the only imminent danger is the loss of a drone.

I can accept executions as long as those executed are provided some form of due process that extends beyond just the Executive branch. I as well see no reason the enemy list should not be published like a most wanted list and I would even go so far as keeping score on who is killed and who remains at large. IF all is really above board then there is no reason to hide this US citizen kill list from the public to scrutinize or our enemies to fear.

Not only within the realm of possibility. It’s the plan. Federal agencies have got billions of rounds of hollow-point bullets to use in the metropolitan areas when TSHTF, but they need an efficient way to “take care of” those who prepared ahead of time and went off the grid.

If American “citizens” actively aiding and abetting the Enemy overseas, then they get what they get. To me, once someone crosses that line, that is a defacto renouncement of their citizenship. I would have shed zero tears if the likes of John Walker Lind get killed by a drone strike or other military means.

In both of those examples, it was clearly a war zone, and it was man-to-man combat, so that’s one obvious difference of many that have been brought up in this discussion.

Here’s one that isn’t making the rounds yet: What if China, for example, gets a fleet of drones and decides to do the same thing, ‘cuz hey, the US says there’s no problem, right? How cool would any of us be with any number of drones from any number of countries raining down bombs on any number of people in any number of countries?

19
posted on 02/07/2013 7:17:52 AM PST
by jiggyboy
(Ten percent of poll respondents are either lying or insane)

I don’t see why Americans truly fighting against us cannot be tried in abstentia for treason when we know who they are.

I see the need for a quick trial, but I do not see the need to eliminate trial by one’s peers.

Of course, this only applies to targeted killings. Americans that are in effect embedded with foriegn enemies are running the chance of being killed in a general fashion.

For instance, had we mounted a specifc raid to kill Tokyo Rose during WWII (like Reinhard Heydrich and Admiral Yamamoto were specifically targeted), and we knew that she was a U.S. citizen, we should have tried her in abstentia first to establish that she was guilty of treason. However, if the mission were simply to destroy the Japanese radio stations and she were killed in the process, then it would not have been a targeted killing.

21
posted on 02/07/2013 7:19:30 AM PST
by SampleMan
(Feral Humans are the refuse of socialism.)

Interesting that overseas telephonic surveillance of a US citizen requires a hearing and order from a FISA judge, but not killing them.

I doubt many of us grieve the loss of terrorists, but a lack of due process opens the Pandora’s Box of who determines the terrorist status. This slippery slope almost surely will end in abuse of power.

Bingo. All military technology finds its way into domestic police use just as quickly as the military allows it to.

You know if drones became another tool for domestic law enforcement, another Waco or Ruby Ridge situation wouldn’t go on for days, or maybe even for one day. After a couple of hours, somebody would simply make the call, “drone ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out”.

25
posted on 02/07/2013 7:23:18 AM PST
by jiggyboy
(Ten percent of poll respondents are either lying or insane)

Well, if they’d had drones up, Waco and Ruby Ridge could have been written off as “gas explosions”. Anyone who said any different would have been written off as “conspiracy theorists” or had their own isolated incident which never made the newspapers outside their county.

26
posted on 02/07/2013 7:34:15 AM PST
by Smokin' Joe
(How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing)

Disclaimer: OK, I know I've never sided with Obama on anything, but this is a serious question and I will try and rise above the dogma. Don't expect that to continue after this posting.

From the US Code,18 USC § 2381 - Treason

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

From Art. 3, section 3 of the US Constitution:

"No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."

The dead "American" terrorists most certainly have levied war against the US and adhered to our enemies, and are according to the US Code "guilty of treason and shall suffer death".

They probably couldn't meet the two-witness standard put forth in the Constitution, but IMHO, that doesn't change the fact that they were actively engaged in treasonous activity, and it doesn't require that they be brought to trial. They are enemy combatants.

It really sticks in my craw to hear these maggots described as "Americans", because as far as I'm concerned that's an honor they forfeited when they signed up for Al Qaeda. They should have been brought to justice, whether that's a military trial or a smoking hole in the desert. Kill them all. Death to traitors.

US uses Tony Blair defence to justify drone killings
A defence of Britain’s role in the war on terrorism given by Tony Blair’s government after the invasion of Iraq is secretly being used by the Obama administration to help justify its drone campaign against al-Qaeda, it has emerged.

I am afraid I bought into the scare tactics of the GOP during the last 12 years or so that compared what we are facing then and NOW with Hitler and Tojo. There is NO comparison. Yet we are willing to give the govt MORE power in some regards than it had then? This is just natural extension of what the govt has been doing for a while.

Those were battlefield deaths. They were indisputably combatants. With drone assassinations, you're hitting people in a country we're not at war with, no declaration of war per the U.S. Constitution, and all we have is the President's word that he believed they were terrorists.

A president who's word is worth less than the contents of my sock drawer.

Plus, for all we know, he believes 2nd Amendment supporters are terorists too, especially us at Free Republic.

Is there ever a good reason to allow the killing of American citizens without due process?

Yup. The short answer is hell, yes. Particularly when their citizenship is in name only. When you make war against your country or your constitution, you've effectively renounced that citizenship if, indeed, you didn't lie when accepting the citizenship in the first place.

The real question is who should make that determination. Unless there is eminent danger such as a battlefield situation, it shouldn't be one person alone, no matter what their rank.

Even a president (especially this one) is unlikely to show any more restraint than an FBI agent aiming at an unarmed woman holding an infant at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.

37
posted on 02/07/2013 7:53:16 AM PST
by Vigilanteman
(Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)

I read through the “evidence” against the Hutaree and it was tame compared to some of what I see posted at FR every day. Folks will have to excuse me if I don’t automatically assume the government will do the right thing.

That case was so bad that a black, female, Clinton appointee acquitted all members and slapped the feds for trying to convince her that the Hutaree were guilty of anything more than being rednecks. Thank God the feds couldn’t just kill them.

38
posted on 02/07/2013 7:57:49 AM PST
by cripplecreek
(REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)

I read through the evidence against the Hutaree and it was tame compared to some of what I see posted at FR every day.

I believe it. The thing that concerns me most is that people seem to think a battle with the government can be won with bullets. If we don't start thinking logistically and start stocking food in secure locations, no amount of ammo will matter. Never has this nation been so terribly unprepared to survive any kind of real conflict.

Few realize that true security is found in caring for the people on the land. It's Biblical, in fact, once one takes a serious look at the Hebrew, one realizes that it is the essential point made in the old "Cain and Abel" story and thereafter the Sabbath for the Land. I've been trying to teach that here, to little avail.

45
posted on 02/07/2013 8:14:55 AM PST
by Carry_Okie
(GunWalker: Arming "a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as well funded")

Killing people on the battlefield is entirely different from what Obama is doing. He is able to target any US citizen he deems to be guilty, now that the whole USA has been declared a battlefield.

Out side of a real battlefield, American Citizens are entitled to due process, a finding of guilty or not guilty, and sentencing. They are not to be targets of assasination, just because they happen to be over seas, and certainly not while in the USA.

I have no problem taking them to Gitmo and facing a military tribunal, if they are part of a terrorist organization. That is still a form of due process, wherein they get to answer the charges and are given an opportunity to refute the evidence.

We fought a war to capture and try Sadam Hussein, instead of just assassinating him, but we will just assassinate a citizen? Obama’s justice department believes that the enemy combatants captured in Iraq should be tried in a court of law, but yet he has the right to just kill American Citizens?

No It is not constitutional, lawful, or ethical. It is just plain wrong.

49
posted on 02/07/2013 8:19:46 AM PST
by greeneyes
(Moderation in defense of your country is NO virtue. Let Freedom Ring.)

The most damning “evidence” against the Hutaree was the result of the undercover informant leading them into a conversation about a fantasy scenario about how they would fight police if they had to.

David Stone, the leader says that there’s a big difference between an alcohol fueled bull session in the woods and reality. He knows there is no hope in a direct armed confrontation with government. Its better to work within the system and let your actions prove your case to others.

(Stone was elected constable in his hometown last fall)

50
posted on 02/07/2013 8:25:25 AM PST
by cripplecreek
(REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)

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